The most distracting menu bar status is the remaining battery life. It creates anxiety. It seeks attention. It stops the flow of time. It’s a little parasite that chows away your focus without you realizing it.

If mobility is part of your lifestyle, you’ll find yourself in a situation where battery life plays an important role in your workflow. You don’t want to end your Skype call abruptly because the battery life is empty, so you show battery status in menu bar to stay alerted all the time. But this decision comes with a price: you start to worry the remaining battery life.

Stop worrying that status bar icon.

What are you working on? When you write, write. When you design, design. When you work, work. That’s where you should spend your brain juice — not on the insignificant remaining battery life.

When I’m writing, I want my attention spent on writing. I don’t want — and shouldn’t — worry how much time I have left to finish this article.

The only time you should start paying attention to the remaining battery life is when it falls below 40% charge. I realize I don’t want the battery status icon appears in menu bar when it’s not needed, so I create this Keyboard Maestro macro that monitors the remaining battery life every 40 minutes. If the remaining battery life is less than 40%, it’ll run Battery Time Remaining and sends a Growl notification so I can start looking for a place to charge my MacBook.

Now whenever you start working in front your MacBook, you have 60% of battery life where there is no anxiety and distraction. That’s where the focus lies.

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